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Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

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Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#441

Post by [deleted] »

zbowling wrote: post #165
eli wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not! It's a secret ballot -- you cannot have any way to prove which candidates you voted for.

One way hash with secret salt would work. You enter a secret password as a salt and get a hash code from all your votes so you have a provable record your vote got counted that you can verify but no body can reverse to know it's you. Then stick all the votes up on a server somewhere. Let us go and check our votes are in the list. We could then have informal verification and audits of the counts.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#442

Post by specialist »

gordonguthrie wrote: post #430
specialist wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked at Civitas. The other crypto based voting systems I did study don't actually hide voter's identity in real world elections. The trick to these systems is there's some one-way hash done. This requires a lot of ballots, with enough hash collisions to ensure one's ballot gets lost within the herd. Alas, elections in the USA are precinct-based, typically 1 to 1,000 voters in size. And our ballots are com…

This is all totally irrelevant - I speak as a former candidate for both the UK and Scottish Parliaments. The count needs to be verifiable, and needs to be simply comprehensible. The paper process has the following check points: * the ballot box is seen to be empty at the beginning of the process * the turnout can be collected and collated by the candidates nominees during the day * the first count is the ballot count…

Yup. I'm totally, utterly against electronic voting of any form.

I'll weakly support ballot optical devices at poll sites in many USA jurisdictions, because our ballots can be quite complicated, until someone shows me that hand counting is generally feasible. With 30 issues on a ballot, sort / stack / count can get ugly.

Aside: Thank you for your work on elections. I wish more geeks would actually work an election, or at least observe, before spewing about how to fix voting systems.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#443

Post by gordonguthrie »

zbowling wrote: post #165
eli wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not! It's a secret ballot -- you cannot have any way to prove which candidates you voted for.

One way hash with secret salt would work. You enter a secret password as a salt and get a hash code from all your votes so you have a provable record your vote got counted that you can verify but no body can reverse to know it's you. Then stick all the votes up on a server somewhere. Let us go and check our votes are in the list. We could then have informal verification and audits of the counts.

Total nonsense.

What happens when I stuff the ballot box with a million non-existent votes?

Oh, so you voted correctly and you can prove it. Whoopy do!

> Let us go and check our votes are in the list. We could then have informal verification and audits of the counts.

You have the square root of bugger all - the integrity of the total count is what counts - not the individual votes.

Vote stealing and ballot rigging is a well understood human phenomenon - it is a solved problem.

Sprinkling some poorly thought out computer pixie dust on it is not even the beginning of an answer.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#444

Post by twoodfin »

genwin wrote: post #425
twoodfin wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old are you? Within my lifetime there have been at least six presidential elections that were absolutely not reported as "virtual ties", including the last one.

Found in 5 seconds: "Gallup Daily: Obama-McCain Race Reverts to Virtual Tie" Found in another 5 seconds: "National Poll Shows Bush, Kerry in Virtual Tie" I could go on.

That Gallup poll is from June. The race was a virtual tie then. November reporting is a different story.

And Bush/Kerry was also pretty damned close. Not one of the races I was referring to.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#445

Post by ww520 »

I think a system of repeatability for voting is important. Once a voter has casted a vote, his vote should be able to be repeated without change in different systems at will to verify that his vote has not been tampered.

The system can work like this:

- Voter is assigned a unique ID, on his voting card issued upon verifying his identity. He can pick a security pin for added security.

- Voter is given a device thumb drive, RFID with some RAM, whatever storage device.

- Voter goes to a machine to vote. The machine cryptographically signs the voting result with his id. The machine writes the result to his storage device, emails him a copy, and/or puts the result on a public website. The machine also sends the result to a central server for compilation.

- Voter can go to any other machine on any other sites, plug in his result, his id, and his pin to see the voting result for verification. Voter can confirm by sending the result to central server. Or submit the signed result to third party website to display it for verification.

- If there's any mismatch, voter raises hell and demands to invalidate old vote (after verifying his identity, id, and pin), revote, and burn the tampering machine.

Edit: Id obviously means a public/private key pair.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#446

Post by gordonguthrie »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #376
eli wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No dice. One of the goals is that you can't prove how you voted (i.e. so you can't sell your vote).

> you can't prove how you voted (i.e. so you can't sell your vote). // I assumed that if anything it was to prevent people being pressured in to voting a particular way (eg an abusive spouse) - what' wrong with selling your vote, surely that's still democratic: you've chosen to accept a particular candidate based on the outcome for you.

Vote buying is not about a voluntary market in a tradeable commodity - it is about your boss not being able to say 'prove you vote my way or I will sack you' or your landlord saying 'prove you vote may way or I will evict you'.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#447

Post by mcantelon »

kbutler wrote: post #433
mcantelon wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They don't "always" favor the republican. That's just hyperbole. I've yet to see a credible instance of vote machine "malfunction" favoring Democrats covered by a reputable source, but if you have any links I'd be interested as it's certainly possible. >Voter fraud is far more common than alleged insidious voting machine malfunctions. Due to the nature of electric voting without a paper trail, there's no way to make…

30 seconds with google found: http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/malfunctio... """touched the screen to vote for Mitt Romney but the machine lit up the name of Barack Obama. Stevens tried a second time and again the machine lit up Obama when she selected Romney. She tried a third time and finally Romney’s name lit up. Stevens reported the malfunction to board of elections personnel and was told the vot…

Established media sources (preferably with some statistical analysis showing pro-Democrat anomalies) rather than random blogs would be nice, but thanks.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#448

Post by gordonguthrie »

ry0ohki wrote: post #176
goostavos wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not the best civics student.. What is the significance of it being secret ? Being able to verify your vote seems like a pretty simple, good thing ( I would think ).

So say if some party were to gain power and start harassing people that voted for the other party...

In Spain in 1936 the Francoists shot a proportion of people on the voter lists of the Government Parties.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#449

Post by zero_intp »

mietek wrote: post #402
mcantelon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These voting machines flaws were widely reported last election. They always favoured the Republican candidate. Here's court testimony of an developer who was asked to create one of these rigged systems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVmsaDS_FwY

What happened to this court case? Why isn't there a huge outcry about this?

Per the usual, the witness 'suicided'.

Re: Reddit user captures video of 2012 voting machines altering votes

#450

Post by MartinCron »

briandear wrote: post #387
btilly wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democrats have tried to increase the length of time early voting happens, increase the hours, and increase the number of voting locations. All of these changes make it easier for people who were on the fence about voting to vote. They do this because they know that people who might or might not vote are much more likely than not to vote Democratic. Thus adding these people to the vote advantages themselves and disadv…

However, Democrats have worked to make it more difficult for the military to vote when deployed. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/09/26/obama-accus...

I think you meant to say Democrats have been accused of working to make it more difficult for the military to vote when deployed
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